The History of the Sign for Addition

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The earliest history of plus sign (+) we can trace is Egyptian hieroglyphic. The sign for addition was represented as a pair of legs walking in the direction of the text, neither left nor right . Because Egyptian could be written either from right to left or left to right. In Italy, the symbol plus (+) were adopted by the astronomer Christopher Clavius. The first person who may have used the plus (+) sign as an abbreviation was the astronomer Nicole Oresme’s, the author of the book” The Book of the Sky and the World” in 14th century. She uses the + plus sign as a shorthand for the word “et”. In the early 15th century, Europe generally uses letters “P” with symbol (P with line p̄) for più indicating plus. A book published by Henricus Grammateus in 1518 also makes another early use of + sign for addition. Robert Recorde who is the designer of the equals’ signs, also introduces plus sign to Britain in 1557 in the book of “The Whetstone of Witte”. It seems like there were different versions of these signs used by various people, but it was Robert Recorde who gave us the signs that we use till now, passed generations after generations before being accepted universally. This is the first equation ever written, by Robert Recorde in his book The Whetstone of Witte, in 1557. The equation is represented, in modern terms, “14 x +15=71”, and the answer to the equation is 4. However the plus sign was used different before in all different countries with different people, but in present days we use + as the universal symbol for plus meaning addition or more. The plus sign (+) are mathematical symbol used to represent positive as well as the operations of addition. It is used to show that a number is being added to another number, as in 3+5=8.... ... middle of paper ... ...glish people from the religious point of view. + Plus sign is placed over churches indicating the cruel murder of Christ. The expression “plus” is also found on Roman tombstones indicating the age of the creased person in this form: AN. LXXXXIIII.P.M.; which means 94 years more or less. In conclusion, I think the plus sign (+) is really interesting because the fact that people uses a different symbol for addition has become the same symbol that is used universally. Plus sign has become a universal language for all of us now. Whenever you do math, science or finances, we know precisely what the symbol (+) signify. Plus signs are used in our daily lives and appear on many things we see, uses or needs. Life is a lot easier with symbols like the plus sign to help us see differences among something that is good or bad, more or less, present or not present in something.

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